A Walk Down Memory Lane
by Magister Equitum
Summary: With graduation looming, Amita comforts her and Charlie's eighteen year old daughter as only a mother can. With photos and words.


Author's Notes: They say to write what you know. A few days ago I happened upon my mother's tub of younger day keepsakes while looking for her graduation speech to gain ideas for mine. Needless to say, as Amita comforted her daughter, my mother helped me and my tears. Though not with the same memories, as my mother never had a conversation about a vegetable on a first date or was into multiple person online role-playing.

Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognize. Amita and Charlie belong to Cheryl, Nick, and the producers. I own the original story idea.

* * *

Humming a wordless tune, Amita swayed back and forth in front of the stove. Spaghetti noodles and a homemade marinara sauce – dinner for tonight – bubbled lazily, not caring when she lifted the wooden spoon to stir every few minutes. The smell was enough to make her stomach groan in anticipation; the aroma had already brought her sixteen year old son through the swinging door twice.

Amita tapped her spoon on the pot's rim and set it aside. Her elbow leaned against the counter and she went back to reading her women's magazine. According to this stylist, no doubt a hot shot from New York, animal print was going to be big this coming summer.

She looked up, casting aside the zebra and leopard patterns, when her son came through the kitchen door's yet again. Exasperating words of "it's not going to be ready any faster the more you come bother me" were on the tips of her tongue.

But they died when she noticed his worried expression. Mother mode kicked in and she immediately turned to him. "Alan, what's wrong?"

Alan, who looked so much like his father, shook his head. "It's Charlotte, Mom. She's upstairs crying."

Already half way towards the stairs, Amita said over her shoulder, "Watch dinner."

Hand on rail, one foot after another, she climbed the stairs of the Craftsman. She wasn't immediately alarmed. Crying and tears had become rather common when it came to her daughter. The end of high school was finally hitting the eighteen year old girl and both Amita and her father had done their best to be there for Charlotte.

Pausing to look into what had been her brother-in-law's room years ago, she found the graduate's bedroom empty. Amita had expected to find her on her bed, possibly with her yearbook or some other sentimental item.

Her feet knew the pathway down the hall and looking left and right, she soon found her baby girl:

Kneeling over a blue plastic tub – the kind for storing things –, Charlotte's back met her eyes. Her daughter was unaware that someone else had found her, but the slight shaking of her shoulders and the soft sniffle must have been how Alan had figured out what was wrong.

Amita knocked on the wooden door of the room that had been converted into a storage room of sorts.

Startled, the girl…no…young woman dropped whatever she had been looking at and turned her upper body around. Seeing that she had been found, tan hands rubbed brown eyes. "Oh…Mom."

Amita joined Charlotte. Peering into her sad face, she reached a hand out and gently pushed back dark curls. She didn't say anything about the tears that had been wiped away or the crying. Instead, using her mother skills that had been perfected over the years, she turned her focus onto the blue tub. "Hey. What are you looking at up here?"

Her eldest child's voice was shaky at first but her throat cleared and the tone was stronger as she progressed. "You know I got asked to speak at graduation as a guest speaker. I was just looking for Dad's speech. I wanted to get some ideas." She reached down into the plastic bin and pulled out a few objects. "And I found some of your stuff. Stuff from your senior year and college."

Interested and piqued, Amita leaned up on her knees to get a better look at the objects that had made her daughter so upset. Indeed this was her storage bin of old memories. She hadn't looked at this in years; probably not since they last cleaned out this room, which had to have been at least five or six years ago.

A smile graced her face as her past began to replay: Sporting events, movie ticket stubs, pictures, receipts from god knows where, letters. The items went on.

Charlotte looked over at her and gave her a half smile, half frown; but it was all laced with melancholy. "It just made me sad. I have all these things that I've done over the last four years. And I won't ever get to do them again."

Leaving her young adult life alone for the moment, Amita turned to her daughter. She took her younger hands into her own, squeezing them while looking directly at her. "It is sad. It's supposed to be sad." She gave a hard squeeze. "But it's also happy. This is just one part of your life. The best is yet to come. I promise you. You may never to get to attend another soccer game, but you'll always remember the time your cousin broke that goalie's nose. There will be more soccer games and more people to see. You have to leave… But take the memories with you and make them last."

Charlotte took a moment to let her words sink in, brown eyes lost in thought. A moment later and the two were hugging, Amita murmuring "that's why I'm your Mom" when her daughter whispered "Thank you. You always know just what to say."

A comfortable silence descended in the make shift storage room. Amita went back to lifting out and looking at her memoirs.

A few minutes later, Charlotte tapped a picture, laughing. "Online role playing, Mom? Seriously?"

She snatched it and grinned. "Oh hush."

The eighteen year old lifted a well worn scrapbook, flipping through the pages. "Who is this guy?"

"Hmmm?" Amita set aside the newspaper article she had been reading about the school shooting that had happened her senior year. "Oh. That's Greg."

"Greg?"

A little sigh escaped her lips as thoughts of Greg took over. "He was a really close friend of mine for several years in college. We eventually dated. Your grandparents, from India not Grandpa Alan, wanted me to marry this banker from Goa. At least your father and I haven't done that to you. Greg even asked me to marry him. I didn't say yes…But he still asked."

Charlotte gazed in wonder and amazement at her. "Really? I never knew that. You never told me."

Amita winked. "There is a lot you don't know about my younger years. I wasn't always a 'Mom', you know."

Rising off her knees, she approached the bookshelves. Her fingers remembered exactly where to look. She pulled the newer scrapbook down and rejoined her daughter.

The cover opened with ease and Amita tapped the picture of one Dr. Charles Eppes.

"What's this? That's Dad."

Amita grinned and answered her daughter's question. "That is your Dad. This is a book of things that I saved from when he and I first met and so on. Here is a napkin from the place where he first took me on a date. It was this little restaurant and we tried so hard not to talk about math. It ended in disaster. Your father ended up talking about this vegetable and patterns in the shape. And here is…"

Thus, Amita comforted her daughter's stressed, nostalgic, and heartbroken mind. Together, side by side in front of the blue tub, they went through Amita's memories.

Minutes ticked by and mother and daughter remained upstairs, brown eyes looking at the same things, curled heads bent, until Alan hollered that Charlie was home and that the spaghetti was done.

When her husband and son, as the garlic bread was passed, asked why the two of them were so giggly, Amita shared a look with her daughter and breezily replied, "Just taking a trip down memory lane, darling."

The confused look passed between Charlie and Alan only increased their giggles.

* * *

The End.

When it came to finding things for Amita's younger life, I merely drew from what canon has told us: Role Playing in college, the banker from Goa, the school shooting during high school, her and Charlie's first date and the vegetable that Charlie talked about.

As always, comments and feedback are much appreciated.


End file.
